Soaker Hose

One of the greatly used watering tool for the garden are the soaker hose. They are reasonably priced and they are very effective in making sure that your plants get all the water that they need to. In order for you to get the most out of your leaky hose, you need to know how to properly use it.

A Permanent Part Of Your Garden
The leaky hose or soaker hose as others may know them for are mostly black in colour and they have a rough outer surface. These hoses can let the water seep through them because they are made to be porous. Drip by drip, the water goes out all throughout the length of the hose. This helps in preventing any water run-off to happen. There is also minimal, if not none at all, evaporation that happens when this kind of hose is used.

Once you install the soaker hose in your garden, you don’t keep it or remove it after the watering process. You can simply leave your hose there and it becomes a permanent part of your garden. A regular hose will be attached to this hose only when you are to water the garden. It is possible to attach a timer to it so that it can automatically turn off once it is done and you can leave it on its own. This sounds simple enough but there are a few things that you should remember when using a soaker hose and they are as follows:

1. The soaker hose can work effectively with a certain water pressure. It only needs 10 psi to be able to work efficiently. For most household taps, a pressure of 50 psi is present. To make sure that you don’t damage your soaker hose, you should get a pressure regulator or you can simply turn the tap on low.

2. There is also a limit to the length of the soaker hose to be effective in the garden as a watering system. You can only have 100 feet of it for a single hose to make sure that the pressure is still workable for it. This is great only if you have a smaller area to water. Although there are watering systems that are capable of handling up to 600 feet of soaker hose, you need to make sure that each of the hoses are at the most 100 feet only.

3. The soaker hoses are better when they are covered with mulch. This is why you have to be careful in planting during the next spring because you can accidentally damage the hose when you strike the ground. It can be frustrating to try and fix leaky hose so you have to prevent damaging them in the first place. It would be best to mark where they are so you don’t accidentally ruin them.

4. Trying to figure out how long each watering session should take shouldn’t be left to guesswork. You can try to estimate how long you should water by making use of a simple container under several parts of the hose. You can then measure the amount of water on each of the container and derive your answer there.